There is no silver lining for the Democrats.
Donald Trump has won everywhere and he will win the popular vote.
He did better across demographics — growing his coalition with black voters, Latinos, young voters.
The US became less racially divided by party.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris underperformed Joe Biden virtually everywhere, as Trump improved his 2020 margin in 2,367 counties.
His margin narrowed in only 240 counties.
Why did Trump do so well?
Trump didn’t just sweep up the swing states, and none of them will be that close.
He shut the door on Harris in a ton of blue states.
She won anemic victories in New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Minnesota, while he widened his margins in red states to take generationally big victories in Florida and Iowa.
He flipped Miami Dade county, won a heavily Latino county Hillary Clinton won by 30 points to 10 in 2016.
He drove down Harris’ margins in major urban centers everywhere, including Chicago, New York and Austin.
What did the Democrats do wrong?
- Biden stayed too long
- Lack of primary process meaning Democrats were denied the opportunity to elect someone not associated with the Biden-Harris administration – which also denied them an opportunity to properly develop a message
- Afghanistan withdrawal (Biden’s poll never recovered)
- Too much (somewhat) inflationary stimulus spending during covid
- The management of Israel’s war in Gaza
- Long-term attrition in the ethnic minority voter base without corresponding improvements with white voters
- Trump’s enduring political appeal and Democrats’ confusion over how to deal with him.
How bad of a loss is this?
This feels like a much more devastating loss for Democrats than 2016.
That year they had plenty of things to comfort them – a massive victory for the referendum, a narrow loss in the Electoral College in a few places, a rock-solid ethnic minority coalition that looked like a solid electoral map of the future.
Roe vs. Wade was intact and the Supreme Court was still balanced.
They have none of that now.
Instead, they are staring down the barrel of a transformed Republican Party and a persistent inability to know how to deal with Trump and MAGAism.
Politically, they have nowhere to go either.
During Biden’s term, they governed exactly according to their own instincts – and it has been rightly rejected by the voters.
What does this mean for Trump?
This victory cements Trump’s position as the central American political figure of this century.
Biden thought he would be the restoration of the old order — but Trump has made sure he was the last gasp of it.
The Republican Party is now permanently MAGA and the Democrats will change too – the old liberal order is not coming back.
Economic policy will be more protectionist across the board, both parties more isolationist, politics more aggressive, and Democrats less likely to elect historic candidates.
Politics will look more like Trump in the future, not least because his movement now has a natural heir and successor in JD Vance, a young ambitious VP.
At the same time, the Democrats have no obvious leaders at all.
